Ashes, Dust, and Candle Wax

Last week at youth group a wonderful young priest came and spent time with us to teach us about Taize and prayer in the style of Taize.  After a shared meal and a lot of talking, we went into the sanctuary.  She pulled out an entire bag of tea lights, and I was immediately delighted.  Not only are candles important to me, but just a few weeks earlier my wife and I had led a session on prayer where we had talked about how just the simple act of lighting a candle can itself be a prayer.  It was a happy harmony of lessons on prayer for our students.  It's tough to know, just seeing them once a week, how much they are internalizing what we expose them to, but I'm pleased to think the Holy Spirit is at work even in our sometimes haphazard plans.

Anyway, because of that night I ended up sending the link to my Advent Triptych to that priest, as well as the woman who runs our youth group.  One of the quotes that I had in mind as I was writing that sermon is from a notecard my dad keeps on his bedroom door.  He has it as a Jack London quote; an internet search will question the validity of the reference.  In any case, this is what it says:

"I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out
    in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom
    of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."

I've long assumed that I would also rather be ashes than dust.  I'd like to think I've lived most of my life burning brightly; I've certainly burnt out a number of times.  Only God has kept me from many more! 

The frenzied and frenetic fiery pace I kept in high school, college, and even seminary (to a lesser extent) probably came straight from my 8th grade teacher's echo of this credo: "Suck the marrow out of life!"  I think his quote may have been the first time I heard someone say something that gave me language for what I was already thinking: "Suck the marrow out of life."  He described the way a dog will not just eat the meat off a bone but crack it and break it and suck all the marrow out of it, all the nutrients, consume it completely.  I still remember him telling us that when our head hit the pillow it should be with a sense of accomplishment, with the knowledge that we had done all we could for the day, maybe with a tinge of exhaustion.  The craziest week of my life I averaged between 3 and 4 hours of sleep over 8 days; I had mono a few months later, and slept for 17 hours a day.  Ashes, never dust.

With my senior sermon in mind, I've been re-examining my feelings about this quote.  I've had a very difficult time with one of my co-teachers at school.  I think things are working themselves slowly out.  I don't think I'll ever be friends with this teacher, but at least we are attempting a new pattern of working together with our kids interest in mind, which is not what was happening for the better part of the year, in ways I won't bother to describe.

One thing has recently happened thought that made me just furious.  When I heard about it, I immediately came to a decision (as a good EC teacher) that I would simply start to document everything I did, so that I can prove myself to be beyond reproach.  I didn't opt for confrontation (I never do).  I didn't let it go.  I chose a "middle way."  I didn't choose to confront my co-teacher in anger like a flash-in-a-pan.  I didn't choose to ignore the issue.

I didn't choose ashes.  I didn't choose dust either.

Now I'm not saying I'm above reproach in any way in this situation.  I'm also not even saying that the decision(s) I'm making concerning this situation are all correct.  But what I have reflected on is that rather than ashes or dust, I'm choosing to be just what my senior sermon gave me language to do: candle wax.  I choose the slow burn.  I choose to glow.  I choose to be moved with the wind but not extinguished by it.  I choose to act, but only as much as I can do at one time rather than trying to do everything all at once.  The model I preached about has become for me a via media.

I won't exactly say that this is the Holy Spirit's work, redeeming my sinful tendency to blow up or to hide.  I'm not convinced enough that "holy" really describes anything about my situation.  I don't really even have any answers right now.  But I'm praying and learning and reflecting.  Perhaps above all I'm hoping, hoping that a slow burn will flicker brightly, and not be overcome by the darkness.

Perfect Love Casts Out... Procrastination?

I have a tendency to procrastinate.  I'm much more efficient working on a deadline.  Projects that I know about months in advance tend to get my full attention in the last week (or 48 hours) before they are due, no matter how important they are: term papers, sermons, financial paperwork.  I have a lot of trouble escaping the tyranny of the everyday, the tyranny of the semi-urgent to deal with the truly important.  I actually think the same fear is the reason I can't ever completely clear out my e-mail inbox: I'm afraid, for whatever reason, of completing everything in it.  Of being completely caught up.  It's a different sort of fear, I think, but it controls my actions nonetheless.

Needing fear to crack the whip and force me to work definitely impacted my long absence from blogging.

As I've thought about that this week (in response to working on my loan deferment paperwork and student IEPs at work), I've begun to realize that I'm easily motivated by fear.  Fear of failure, fear of public shaming, fear or financial consequences.

In 1 John the confident assertion leaps off the page: "Perfect love casts out fear."

What does it mean for me that I can't do my work until I'm afraid of failing?  Do I love my work?  Or do I love success?  Do I work for the Lord, or for human approval?  Why do I wait so long to do my IEP prep work?  Do I love my students, or just my job / paycheck?

Perfect love casts out fear.

Must I have to face my fears before I can overcome them?

Perfect love casts out fear.

Can I overcome my fears?  How should I pray to overcome my fear?  How will my life and work look different when that fear is gone?

One thing I've wondered is whether or not my thoughts on this topic lean towards some pop-psychology need to be a "self-actualized individual."  Should I be totally in control of my own motives and desires and actions?  It seems unlikely I can achieve such a state.

I don't yet have answers, or even direction.  What I do have is the collect for the Second Sunday in Lent:

"O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from thy ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever."

In response to the collect, I want my prayer to be: "Father in heaven, have mercy on me for all those things I have left undone.  I have not loved you with my whole heart, and have not loved my neighbor as myself.  Cast out my fear and help me to work for you with gladness and singleness of heart, being strengthened by your Holy Spirit.  Change my heart God, so that I may repent and turn to you.  In your perfect love, cast out my fear.  Amen."

When Perfection Stands in the Way of Competence

I got scared of blogging.

I remember when I was a senior at Houghton and I was following the blogs of a few friends who went to different seminaries from my program.  I was excited at first to keep up with their lives, how they seemed to be changing and how excited they were about starting the next track in their lives.  I quickly became frustrated: it seemed like their blogs became sermon blogs, and I didn't hear anything else from them except the assignments they were preparing for classes.  It wasn't the same feel, and I (for the most part) quit following them.

When I started this blog in Advent '11, I was determined not to let the same thing happened to me.  I wanted to blog at least every other week, to keep the discipline of writing a part of my (spiritual) life.  Instead, it became exactly what frustrated me about my former peers: a sermon blog.

Much more than I expected to, I loved preaching.  I loved using / finding / feeling my voice in a community, helping and challenging and maybe even changing people (by God's grace!).  I liked to quietly call my community out on some of their ~smaller~ sins.  I liked to challenge people's common (mis)perceptions about God.  I liked to articulate the unique ways that I saw my life of faith.  My dad predicted when I was at Houghton that I would love it: "You've taken all this in like a sponge since you were little, and now you need to start letting some of it out!"

Loving preaching, I started appreciating my own writing.  That should have been good for my blog!

However, I got a lot of very positive feedback on my preaching as well, from peers AND even from professors.  It fed my not-exactly-small vanity.  Since I graduated, I've only written once or twice.  I've attempted and thought about writing many more times, but never actually sat down to write.  My mind was working, but I wasn't applying myself.

Just recently I've started putting all this together.  Essentially, I've realized I quit writing here because I'm not putting up material that has been checked and edited... and most importantly, that has been praised.  In my vain (note the double meaning here) desire to be a good writer - to be a perfect writer - I've become a complete non-writer!

Perfection stands in the way of competence.  The vain desire to be perfect paralyzes effort.  The need for praise inhibits self-esteem.  Fear of failure, or worse yet, success, feeds laziness.  I'm struggling with all of this: in my writing, in my teaching, in my relationships, in my prayer life.  In the words of an inspirational video that made its way through TFA circles at the beginning of the year, I need to give myself permission to suck.  I need to be willing to try and fail.  I need to embrace the laughter that came after the following exchange during my CPE:

Supervisor: "What's the problem with being wrong?"
Me: "You... I'd...  I'd be wrong!"
*~laughter~*

Well, a new season of the church year, a new commitment.  I commit to writing here once a week.

Articulating a Fear

I am a creature of pride.

I dearly love to rest my laurels on what I have done, have already accomplished, rather than prepare myself for difficult work I will have to do in the present.  Never mind the future.  I can easily imagine some parts of the future: working for TFA, getting a degree from ECU, being ordained.  I cannot imagine the nearer, more difficult future: teaching content I don't know, running IEP meetings, staying up late into the night.  It's the same way I find myself feeling about fiction: I love the beginning of a book more than the end.  I like to have more books than I possibly have time to read (and graduate school encouraged me in this!).  I prefer potential energy to sustained effort.  It isn't at all the case that I would rather be ashes than dust.  I would rather be a matchhead than ashes!

When I was in high school, I thought of myself as a counselor.  Endless patience, untold wisdom, slow to speak and quick to listen.  I am not so patient now, for I have a much higher opinion of myself, a more inflated view of my self-worth.  I am much more important to me than I ever was then.  Is it ironic that this should be a product of other's generous investment of love in me?

What draws me most into ministry now is the task of preaching.  Boy, do I think I have an awful lot to say!  And yet, my experience of preaching is that yes, I do.  I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the preaching I have been privileged to perform.  Many have seen in me a gift and cared enough to name it to my soul, supporting my self-worth but inflating my pride.  Oh, how vain I am!  Who shall rescue me from this body of sin?

Like Paul, I know the answer.  Yet I have not achieved it.  Nor can I.

I brought up preaching because I believe that I have much to say.  My dad first pointed this out to me when he told me I was like a sponge: I've been soaking this stuff in for so long that now it will come out in a veritable wave.  I do have a lot to say... to myself.

My own preaching exercises a powerful hold over my own imagination.  Surely, pride is wrapped up in that, but it has come as an unbidden dream on a regular basis.  Even in high school, when I was certain I was not called - because I had never heard the voice of one calling - I still imagined myself preaching. What drove that dream was the one that drove my patience as well: I wanted other people to be happy.  I wanted them to feel loved... by me?  By God.  I wanted to love God.

When I preach, I find out I do love God.  I experience the pull of God's love into the love of Father for Son, caught up in that mystic sweet communion on interpenetrating, mysterious, hold-nothing-back fully-knowing-fully-known love.  It is a grace that stays with me: remembering my Advent sermon - there is a love stronger than death! - still has the power to bring me to tears.  So too does asking the question "How do you say goodbye?"

But now I need strength.  I need self-emptying grace.  I need, more than anything, humility and patience.  And courage.  I need, to quote myself again, the fully human power that Jesus showed us from the cross: the power to rush headlong into darkness and death for the sake of others.

I can imagine an ending because the end is when I can make sense again.

I need grace for the present because it is, of course, not about me at all.

All Christianities Need Each Other

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html?smid=fb-share

The above article is one that raced around facebook for a few days and at least one friend asked me directly to respond to.  I'm certain I could say much more, but I wanted to at least post my initial thoughts (also visible on her facebook page) out here and see if I get any more traffic :-)

I'll mostly focus my response on this quote: "Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message." There comes a point at which it becomes, arguably, impossible to find and locate a "true" or "pure" Christianity. I remember at Houghton a guest lecturer claiming that "holiness" and "justice" in the OT were the same word (same concept maybe, but definitely different words...). But I think that many conservative / liberal divides can be reduced to the different pursuits that they have, conservatives for holiness and liberals for justice.

Along the same lines, my personal description of "liberal" Christianity is grounded in my Houghton study of "Enlightenment" v. "Post-modernity." Everyone gets angry at the Enlightenment for exalting a glorified, (supposedly) neutral version of capital R Reason over experience or, in conservative circles, scripture. Liberal Christianity, to my mind, has swung the pendulum far in the other direction: nothing can contradict my capital E Experience, not a (supposedly) neutral vision of Reason (that is little more than rich, educated, white men's cultural values) and certainly not Scripture. If scripture is found to be inconsistent with my experience, then what is true must be what I have experienced. The exaltation of the individual over tradition, of experience over reason or of scripture continues to progress further and further.

Now, the question that looms in my mind is, to refer to my first comment, can you actually find a "pure" balance between these things? I think rather not. I have been deeply moved by the profound generosity and deep love of those who my conservatives friends would consider not "real" Christians. I have been supported and sheltered by the conservative Christians whose vision of true faith and holiness has shaped me and helped me grow into whatever it is that I am. I can use reason, scripture, tradition or experience to find healthy love for God and desire to serve God's kingdom among either side of the so-called "divide." But, again, all I need to do is turn to my original post: our scripture and our tradition witness to both of these strains being present and even appropriate. Most of the prophets and even the book of James have a lot to say about why we need to work for justice and that the pursuit of holiness should take a backseat (this is the path TEC sees itself on). The priestly strains of the Old Testament and a lot of Pauline material emphasizes holiness rather than justice.

This is the way that I think about denominationalism. No one denomination has all the pieces of biblical faith truly or even fully or even adequately represented. I am deeply grateful that I grew up in the Holiness movement, inspired by worship and humility (that I arguably never had much of) in the presence of God. I grew deeper in faith because I encountered Pentecostalism and new forms of prayer and even speaking and praying in tongues, practices I admire and respect. I landed in TEC because I found set of trinitarian doctrines and practices in the Anglican Communion that have shaped and changed me, my understanding of God and of the world and human relationships. I'm even slowly coming to be thankful for the ways that being in a hierarchical Episcopal church are shaping my views of authority. All of these strands are important pieces of the faith to which the Bible witnesses. No denomination does all of them well. I for one am glad that I have gotten to spend time at IHOP (KC) as well as YDS as well as Houghton College and a whole slew of Wesleyan youth camps where I have been exposed to and deeply shaped by all of them. While I see excesses and flaws in each of them, I wouldn't dare presume to invalidate any of them as being Christian because I see honest, faithful people pursuing God in each of them.

Control

On reflection, I'm surprised that it took me this long to get to this point.  Starting this blog, I hoped to post once every two weeks.  I didn't meet that goal at all, but I did at least post once a month until May.  That's the better part of half a year.

I have to confess now, though, that I'm disappointed with myself.  Even though I wrote an entire sermon on transitions and interruptions (see "The Pruning Shears of God" post), a lot of my disciplines went out the window in this last month and a half.  I could make a lot of excuses, and maybe even give a couple of reasons.  But there have been so many times that TFA has given me excellent reflection material that I have failed to put up here it is embarrassing.  I have thought several times about posting those things, and just haven't applied myself to doing so.  Now I wish I had.

This is going to be one of my greatest growing edges as I transition into this new phase of my life: taking initiative.  Taking control over my own disciplines.

If self-control is a muscle, it is one I have developed in some ways.  I meet my academic deadlines.  I respond to most e-mails within a couple of days.  I get myself up for church every Sunday morning.  I call my wife every night and text her every morning. 

In other ways, though, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit I wish were more of a vegetable I childishly leave on my plate.  Of the last thirty days since heading to TFA Induction / Institute, I have done morning prayer maybe six or seven times.  I have read scripture a handful more than that, in the evenings when my work is done early (rare) and my roommate isn't around (rarer still). 

I have allowed, like so many others, the places I have lived and studied done the structural work of my spiritual life for me.  In college I had chapel, Koinonia and Mercy Seat to guide my weekly reading and study.  In seminary I had daily morning prayer, daily chapel, and a whole hose of other gatherings with friends.  Now I have only the random, unsought blessings of surprising conversations with new friends with whom I share a common and comfortable understanding.  Yet even in those moments of unexpected joy, little intimacy is shared.  I have been so blessed to share such depths with friends in the last several years that the intentionality that provides the structure for that deep intimacy has become subconscious.  If I am to continue to grow in the next two years, I need the Spirit to grant me the self-control to re-embrace that same intentionality: within new friendships, within ministry opportunities, within myself.

This is my prayer of supplication as I finish Institute this coming week and as I transition yet again towards NC.  But along with it goes a prayer of thanksgiving for today, for allowing myself to be interrupted from morning prayer (I was one collect away from finishing) and accepting an invitation to come to Starbucks, where I'm writing right now.  Perhaps I internalized my sermon more than I thought :-)

The Pruning Shears of God

Jesus said “I am the vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.  I am the true vine, and you are the branches.”

May I speak in the name of the risen Christ. Amen.

This Thursday, I took a final exam – hopefully my final exam – at the Divinity School,

Fittingly, I think, for a class called “Transitional Moments in Western Christian History, Part II.”

In the first half of that class, the final exam had an essay question on it:

What makes a moment transitional?

It’s a question that Greg Ganssle knocked out of the park last week with his front-porch analogy:

Transition is not unusual.

Transition // is the new normal.

The epistle reading from 1 John is trying to re-wire our hearts for a new normal.

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and 

knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

In just four verses, John uses the word love ten times.

Twenty-five times in the reading for today alone.  I didn’t bother to count the whole book.

John wants the normal setting of our hearts to be love for God, love for each other,

Love all the time.

Including times of transition.

In fact, reading 1 John through the lens of transition goes a step further.

It isn’t just that we should love all the time.

It isn’t that we have to maintain our love through times of transition.

Love demands that we undergo radical transition.

The real heart of love is not what we think we have for God.

The real heart of love is what God has for us, what God did for us.

The real heart of love is that God loved us first, and sent his only Son into the world

That we might live through him.

Love demanded reconciliation for our sins.

Love became an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Love is incarnation, the word of God, the love of God made flesh for us.

If you want to know about transition, hear these words from Phillipians:

He did not consider equality with God –

Which he had –

Something to be exploited.

He emptied himself,

Taking the very nature of a servant,

Becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Our faith is founded on the greatest transitions of all time,

The transition of love:

Incarnation.  Crucifixion.  Resurrection.  Ascension.

Ascension brings with it some pretty incredible transitions.

The book of Acts in one sense is the Acts of the Apostles,

A model for the church in transition that we could very easily imitate:

Sharing all things in common,

Giving to all who have need,

Gathering for prayer.

But in another sense the book of Acts is a more singular Act of the Holy Spirit,

An unrelenting presence of unexpected love sustaining this new body called the church

Through a whirlwind time of transition.

The Book of Acts catalogues that fractured sense of time when every follower of Jesus

Struggles to figure out what it means follow Jesus with Jesus not around.

The Holy Spirit somehow shows up in the middle of their struggle,

Stretching and expanding their communities to new forms, new definitions, even new locations.

One of the things that makes transition so difficult for us is that transition marks a time when we don’t 

know what we can expect.

I still remember the words of a professor during my orientation at the divinity school:

“If you are exhausted, that is ok.

The basic neural pathways that form your base expectations for everyday living are all being upended.”

Where’s the bathroom?  Where’s the water fountain?  When are we going to eat?  Where even are we?  What’s going on?

Adjusting to a new time, a new place, a new set of relationships takes a lot of work.

Transition is exhausting,

Because we don’t know what we can expect

Or even what we should expect.

I’ve always been struck by the question John Bonk asks about the gospels:

[And forgive me, John, for misquoting you so terribly]

What are we left with of Jesus life if we take away all the interruptions?

Jesus’ life on earth – his incarnational life of love, the greatest transition ever known –

Is constantly filled with interruptions.  Heal me.  Son of David have mercy on me.  Who is this woman?  Teacher, we caught this woman in the act of adultery.  Should we pay taxes to Caesar?  Teacher, what marvelous stones!  These people are hungry, and we have no food.  Lazarus has died.  How can I enter the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus is always getting interrupted.

And he always responds with patience, letting the other that he encounters set the agenda.

If our faith is founded on the greatest transition of all time,

One of the marks of discipleship should be a healthy relationship with transition, with interruption.

One of the marks of our discipleship should be our ability to respond to interruptions by patiently letting others set the agenda.

One of the marks of our discipleship should be

That we think transition is normal.

Philip gives us a great example of this.

What’s that?  Walk down the wilderness road?

OK.

Go over to the chariot with the foreigner in it?

OK.

Explain to me what I’m reading!

OK.

By the way, we’re just gonna drive this chariot around a little bit while you explain.

OK.

What is there to prevent me from being baptized?

OK.  Let’s do it!

Poof!  You’re in Azotus.

OK.  No big deal.  Guess I’ll just do some preaching then.

Philip embraces transition.  He isn’t surprised by it.  He isn’t fazed by interruption.

He’s the perfect example of how we should apply those words from 1 Peter:

Be prepared, in season and out of season, to give an account of the hope which is in you.

In season and out of season. 

Transitions are going to happen.  They are normal for a disciple of Jesus.

Times and seasons are constantly changing.

What has to remain constant is our ability to listen to the Holy Spirit,

To speak of the hope that we have in Jesus,

To know      that we are rooted in the love of God our Father.

St. John’s Episcopal Church at Orange and Humphrey is at a new time of transition.

St. John’s is in a time when we don’t know what to expect,

And we don’t even know what we should expect.

St. John’s is in a time when what was normal for the last few years has been interrupted.

The temptation is going to be intentional about setting our own schedules,

Trying to figure out exactly what we want and exactly who we want to be,

To create a plan of action and to follow it through,

To set our own agenda.

That kind of thinking, of community awareness, of intentionality has its place.

But Brothers and sisters, we need to be cautious about walking down that broadly defined road.

Today I articulate as challenge to all of us – myself included, in my own time of post-graduation transition –

The challenge to slow down,

To pay attention to the things that annoy us -

About ourselves, our communities, the relationships we have, the tasks we don’t want to do –

The things that interrupt the lives we want to lead.

I call that challenge listening for the Holy Spirit.

We have before us the challenge to act with patience,

To respond to every difficult question that comes before us

To let other people set the agenda.

In this time of transition,

We must ask for and let our hearts be re-wired to a new normal,

To the very heart of love that is God’s very self,

The mystery of faith: Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and coming again.

Transitions and interruptions are challenges to our expectations.

When we listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice,

When we let ourselves abide in the life-changing love of Jesus Christ,

Transitions and interruptions remind us that our lives and our communities are not / about / us.

Transitions and interruptions become the very acts of God.

Transitions and interruptions are the pruning shears of God,

Reminding us that we are the branches,

Grafted onto the true vine,

Who wanders and grows not on its own, or according to its own path,

But is itself pruned and guided by the very hand and love of God the Father.

Amen.